Unspeakable Debt
by CeleryBunch
Summary: Steve Rogers isn't the only one Peggy Carter holds claim over. A look back at her influence in Tony Stark's life. In the long, piercingly clear view allowed by hindsight, it increasingly occurred that debts like that aren't eligible to be paid in full.


It's impossible to inherit anything from someone with no blood relation, with nothing physically carried over. But he likes to think he inherited a lot from her. More than he ever did from Howard, at any rate. Maybe not anything so obvious and impossible as eye color or the set of a jaw, those belonged to his biological parents; but integrity and his current status as 'still breathing' were owed almost solely to her. In the long, piercingly clear view allowed by hindsight, it increasingly occurred that debts like that aren't eligible to be paid in full. For all the money and influence in the world he had, there wasn't a check to be written to cover that kind of charge, and it grated.

He's fourteen the first time he overdoses, and he wakes to the taste of charcoal and blood in his mouth; a heaviness well settled in his bones that seems to pin him under its weight. The ice pick through his skull goes without saying and mirrors the dull ache that creeps up through his ribcage to his throat. The term 'hit by a truck' suddenly makes a hell of a lot more sense than it had the last time he was awake. A slight turn of the head revealsher, and not his parents, sitting beside the bed; looking more disappointed than anything. And for some reason he can't identify at the time, that's worse than any comment Howard might have had.

She stands, shoulders square with a barely audible sigh; fingers carding through his hair before giving a tug sharp enough to make his eyes burn. Or at least, he blames that for it. "Grow up."

And then she's gone, leaving him a few hours that he forcibly removes from his memory, the sharp image of those minutes relegated to the vault where breakdowns go to die and never looked at again if at all possible. Howard and Maria never find out.

It's another four years before he dares overdose again, and this time there's not idle fear of their opinion, as they aren't alive to feel particularly strongly in either direction.

At 23, the wheel of self-destruction turns on its creaking axis with the shrill sound of scraping metal as car collides with cement barrier; turning the air a grand total of twice and skittering along the asphalt to settle on its roof with an ominous, jarring bang that gets committed to memory just before the world vanishes from view. This time when he wakes, it's to the sound of a reporter on the small screen directly opposite him relaying the latest in the headlining story of the Stark heir's coma and possible spiral; parallels between that accident and another that he chooses not to think about are drawn.

He doesn't recall even getting in the car.

The tap of a pen on muted paper surface heralds another presence, but this time his head doesn't turn from its fixed point, eyes locked on the off-white ceiling before they close again and he allows the sedatives to do their job rather than face anything even remotely akin to her. Next time he wakes, he's alone and the cotton wool of decent drugs has lifted enough to let the edge of regret slip through; a single piece of paper neatly folded as if belonging in an envelope in his hand.

It takes more than a few hours to unfold the single sheet, and even longer to realize it's the beginning of his obituary scrawled in perfectly neat, familiar handwriting. He crumples under the weight as the paper crumples under his, and six months later it scatters to ash in his hand without a care for the carpet. It's two years before he pours another drink.

He's 37 the day the world momentarily stops spinning with a quiet click of the tongue and a reproving 'Howard' cutting in over a remark about business; for a moment reducing him to complete silence as his mouth clicks shut and something terribly fragile under his ribcage irrevocably gains a spider's web of cracks over its surface before shattering into countless sharp pieces that sink and settle in his stomach. Then he smiles brilliantly for the time it takes to pry his teeth unstuck to plea work and push steadily to his feet, dropping a ghost of a kiss on her cheek as he leaves which earns a roll of the eyes and a quip about being clever but terrible company that sears the smile in place until the door closes behind him and a subtle, clawing, burning sensation takes its place in his throat.

He wishes he hadn't burned the obituary. Or the time.

It's August and he's 45, standing beside Sharon Carter and earning curious glances from Steve Rogers in the late afternoon sun in the far corner of a painfully pretty cemetery; in impossibly dark sunglasses. Impassive. He neither speaks at the service, nor is he any more than a passing presence, and when curious glance turns to question after, he falls easily back on a hollow explanation of respect; thinly worded through press smile #12 as he turns on his heel.

Beneath the obligatory words and numbers on the head stone he leaves in his wake, a small bronze titanium plaque rests just above the ground; engraved in simple, even, black font.

_'Owed Unspeakable Debt.'_


End file.
